A Writer's Take on Global and National Issues with Background Information and Humor As Needed

The Future of THE Book – SamHenry vs Stephen King

Posted on October 7, 2010

Forbes and CNN both interviewed Stephen King recently. In both interviews, the key moment for this former librarian and information scientist was when they asked him about the future of the book as we have known it since the Chinese invented movable type. They were asking the first major author to bypass traditional book publishing and to distribute one of his works of fiction exclusively in an e-book format. Watch the video.

Now to the heart of the matter. The physical book as we know it now will, in the mind of SamHenry, never disappear. Books published today will become collectible both as a treasured medium or as an artifact to trade and make a living. Why?

Even now, there are people who don’t really collect or read old books, they just want to decorate with them. They like the looks of a shelf of old books. It lends cache and atmosphere to a room. It lends prestige to the owner since it may signal the possession of true intellect coupled with an honest sense of history both of the book and its content.

There WILL always be people who feel they just can’t get comfortable with a Kindle. It strains the eyes, it is not as comfortable to hold.

Even today, there are people, fewer each year to be sure, that are devoted to even older methods of printing than are practiced now. They love good paper carefully moistened to receive an impression from the bite of an old press – a really old press – one a couple of hundred years old or more. Running your hand over the page of one of these books is the most satisfying experience a book lover can have. You feel the texture of the fine old rag paper; you feel the deep impression of the type as your eyes feast on choice of type face, jacket and title page design. It is the most beautiful format in which a book can be produced.

Let’s get practical. The lights go out for a week during an ice storm, your ipad gets hacked or terrorists knock out a grid. Bye bye electronic format. Thank god many academic libraries and the Library of Congress to be sure have copies of “the real thing” stored away in preservation vaults deep in the hearts of mountains and other places.

You drop your ipad or the Kindle falls in the toilet as King says. That’s the end game – no pun intended to practitioners of bathroom reading.

We can hope that the less advantaged among us can afford a Kindle or a book on DVD or that they have a library close enough and safe enough to visit.

It will be the end of Borders and Barns & Noble. No more browsing in a place that sells good latte or that has comfortable nooks to settle into and read. No more socializing and great places for lectures and readings. Gone. Can we feel good about a Kindle Cafe?

Most assuredly in the larger picture, we will need to encourage economies of cost, space and materials as well as enhance accessibility to multiple sources for knowledge through use of electronic delivery of books, journal articles and etc. We need to move on to paperless delivery of reading materials. But make no mistake, eventually Stephen King will write a horror story about an e-book book that jumps out of the net, morphs into paper and print and murders people with Kindles.

The printing press put manual-copy scribes out of business forever. The codex replaced the scroll. The publishing industry is on its way to extinction as the ease of self-publishing ebooks grows. I think eReaders will relegate print books to a place of backup plans and collector’s items. They cost too much, utilize too many resources, and the cost of the industry demands are out of control. Authors themselves will want more control over their destiny than they’re willing to give. Right now, Amazon.com’s DTP (Digital Text Platform) publishing arm for Kindle is providing authors a whopping 70% of the royalties from every sale. Barnes and Noble is trying to enter the fray now (late, IMO) with their PubIt! platform, which is offering authors 65% of royalties. Anyone can do it, and while that causes some to shake their heads and smirk, saying the market will be flooded by junk and bad writing, the market itself shows it will not bear garbage. Readers want good books to read, period. They won’t buy junk.

In addition to this, readers can now bypass the gatekeeper system of the publishing industry and get to the authors themselves. If I love a writer’s work, I don’t have to depend on the publishing industry’s subjective opinions of the writer to decide whether I get to read him/her or not. It’s simple, effective and easy. I sample the book. If the writer grabs me, I buy the book. If I don’t like it I can return the book. If I do like it I refer friends to the book and give it a good review, and thus the system is no longer subjective but one of consensus. How much better is that? The good writers will rise to the top while the bad ones… don’t.

It’s going to be cost that keeps the eReader alive and puts the print book into specialized marketing niches. Technology put aside the bow and arrow, the corded phone, the horse and buggy. The same will be true for the print book. You can still buy horses and buggies if you’d like, but you pay a premium for them and most people won’t have them. That’s the way of the future for print books, in my humble opinion.

And this is only the beginning of the eBook, SH. Just wait until the eReaders start being able to accommodate video and integrated audio and more. A fantastic future full of exciting prospects lies ahead!

I don’t think – at least I hope I didn’t suggest that the book as we know it should continue to dominate. I think I am saying that it will still have a place. Printing presses take up whole rooms and take a long time to master so that will fall out. I agree about all that is happening. As I said, there will always be a place for the book as we know it today. And I do bless the democratization of publishing. Why should a few people in an ivory tower determine what you read? It is the final frontier.

I do have one concern. That is that the more that is in the province of the internet, the more removed it is from the average citizen. The average cit could pick up a paper at low cost or a paperback. He did not have to be specially instructed in a software package and make dozens of downloads per year to maintain an ibook, etc. It was just a simpler “technology” for a lot of people globally. I think we should not commit our old books to the dumpster but ship them to places where people are starved for reading materials. It will take a long while before the technology you and I have mastered is available globally to the masses. That is the last frontier. It is only fair that they join in this. I will fight for that. But as I said, there will always be those of us who will support the old flat bed presses of the 18th and 19th centuries that will continue to be operated by lovers of fine books. It just will not go away and, unlike a horse and buggy, does not take a lot of money and learning all about that “technology.” Please don’t dump fine print books into a horse and buggy LOL. I know exactly what you are saying and you have said it well. But “anything you can do, I can do better…..” That is what keeps us friends – the mutual respect and banter. Long live benign banter. Got any cookies on ya? Your wife always leaves some for me.

It’s like a court case. First you samhenry put forward your sterling defence of embattled books. Then you DarcKnyt slamdunked the case for the prosecution. (Yeah, I know, in court it’s the other way round, prosecution first.) But samhenry is not beaten but merely retreated to some higher ground.
My jury will have to retire to consider our verdict.

I do, though, worry about one aspect to which samhenry has alluded – the low tech nature of printed books. It’s possible without sophisticated electronic kit to produce a rudimentary printed book. That is achievable without wandering into the realms of magic technology. So books are still within the range of our comprehension. That’s reassuring. Come armageddon, books can continue.

It’s a bit like with cars. In the past, when something went wrong, you could have a fair go at fixing it – mechanics, bodges, patches, loose wires tightened. Now though, if the computer chip fails, you’re stuffed. You have to hand over to the experts. You’ve lost control.

Sure the e-books may be all singing and dancing, and the new car safer, comfier and more fuel efficient – but what about us? We’ve become less capable, less independent, less in control – should we ever need to stand on our own two feet.

Ok – I realise I’m beginning to sound like a doomsday militiaman. But remember the film Wall-e, and the human blimps in orbit so cosseted they never needed to even walk anywhere, and thereby lost the ability to walk at all.
Thus endeth the rant.http://www.blackwatertown.wordpress.com

I knew my beloved would have to sound off on this one! His favorite author, his passionate grasp of the digital publishing realm – of course he’d be here. 🙂

I think – being a lover of books myself, that I agree with you Sam that books will always be around. And there will always be locations where technology hasn’t caught up.

But when we have the technology, we glom onto it like ants on sugar. And I kind of love that about us. Free market and all that. In with the new. I would love to have a Kindle. I don’t think it causes eye strain though, since everyone I’ve talked to who has one says the font sizes are adjustable, so you can make the “print” bigger. And they are said to be lightweight, lighter even than the standard paperback. Imagine being about to carry hundreds of books in the space of 1! How awesome is that? I’m in love already.

And scared too. What if the connection goes down? What if Amazon (or whoever it may be) decides to retract a book you’ve bought and paid for, as they did last year with, ironically enough, 1984? What if it gets stolen? Does the thief then have access to any personal information? What about privacy? Is Amazon tracking all my book purchases and putting me on some kind of list?

So yeah, absolutely things to be concerned about.

At the same time, I hope that I one day too, will be able to curl up with my cup of hot chocolate and my Kindle and read the night away. 🙂